What’s the big deal about this guy, Jenő Blau? Well, you probably know him better by his adopted name, Eugene Ormandy.
Ormandy, a Hungarian-born violinist, who had studied with Jenő Hubay (for whom he was named), became a naturalized American citizen in 1927. He ultimately wound up directing the Philadelphia Orchestra for 44 years. In that capacity, he became one of the world’s most-recorded conductors.
However, in some respects, he remains a vastly underrated one. Sure, he was a superb interpreter of 19th century and post-romantic classics, but he also championed much contemporary music and new works written by his adopted countrymen. Also, if there was a more sensitive accompanist in the concerto repertoire, I don’t know of him.
Join me this afternoon, from 4 to 6 EST, as we honor Eugene Ormandy on the anniversary of his birth (in 1899), on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” with Thanksgiving right around the corner, the focus is on movies that celebrate family, community and country.
In 1945, Aaron Copland scored a short semi-documentary for the Office of War Information. “The Cummington Story” relates the gradual acceptance of European war refugees into a cautious but fundamentally decent New England community. The score is pure Americana, with some of the material later finding its way into Copland’s Clarinet Concerto and “Down a Country Lane.”
Thank you, amazing YouTube, for making the complete film available online!
“Field of Dreams,” from 1989, is one of those rare films that has the ability to reduce manly men – even those without father issues – to a pool of tears. Phil Alden Robinson’s superior adaptation of W.P. Kinsella’s novel, “Shoeless Joe,” is a male wish-fulfillment fantasy, in which a man finds redemption, and a new understanding of his father, in the enchanted cornfields of America’s heartland. And it’s all brought about courtesy of America’s pastime, baseball. The evocative score is by James Horner.
“The Best Years of Our Lives,” from 1946, is one of the great American classics. This touching film tells the tale of the three WWII veterans struggling to readjust to civilian life. It isn’t easy, but with the support of family and friends, there’s plenty of hope for the future. Hugo Friedhofer wrote the Academy Award-winning score, earning the film one of its seven Oscars. The orchestrations were by Copland protégé (and composer of “The Big Country”) Jerome Moross.
Finally, from 2012, Daniel Day-Lewis elevated Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” to greatness with one of the most amazing performances ever captured on film. Day-Lewis’ gentle but shrewd Man of Destiny would go to any lengths to hold the country together. John Williams tapped into America’s proud musical heritage, clearly influenced by Copland and Ives, to create a score of stirring nobility.
I hope you’ll join me as we give thanks for family, community and country on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
It’s never too early to be thankful. Therefore, I hope you’ll join me early tomorrow morning on WPRB, as we look ahead to Thanksgiving.
We’ll enjoy Matthew Brown’s setting of “Table Grace” (on a text by Garrison Keillor) and Eric Whitacre’s “I thank you God for most this amazing day,” alongside Quincy Porter’s “New England Episodes” (evocative of the region’s Puritan past), John Adams’ “Shaker Loops,” and one of Alan Hovhaness’ most fascinating symphonies, the Symphony No. 60 “To the Appalachian Mountains,” informed by the composer’s study of shape notes, mountain music and folk poetry.
It’s a cornucopia of Americana for Thanksgiving, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. To the tables and stuff yourselves, on Classic Ross Amico.
PHOTO: Seldom has cheesecake sat so well atop turkey
In the words of the Duke, “Whoa, take ‘er easy there, Pilgrim.”
It’s understandable that the Pilgrims would have been agitated. By the time the Mayflower left England, they had already been living on board ship for a month and a half. Then 300 miles out to sea, the Mayflower’s sister ship, the ironically named Speedwell, began to leak and they had to return to port. The now extremely overcrowded Mayflower embarked once more. It took 66 days to cross the Atlantic. By the time they finally landed, well north of their projected target of Northern Virginia (the territory then encompassing the Hudson Valley), they had long exhausted their supply of sandwiches and their collective blood sugar level was plummeting. Fortunately, the locals were kind enough to help them out, and Puritanism took root in America. And we’ve been paying for it ever since.
Still, we, like the Pilgrims, have much to be thankful for, and this morning on WPRB we’ll celebrate our good fortune with music by American composers on the subjects of gratitude, flight from religious persecution, the torments of Puritanical repression, Native American themes, and New England, Southern and mountain folk music and hymn tunes.
So go ahead and help yourself to a second slice. It will be more powerful than a tryptophan coma, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’ll be loosening our belts in front of the football game, on Classic Ross Amico.
Trust me. If you are interested in American opera or local history, you won’t want to miss this one.
Just in time for Thanksgiving, I’ll be sitting in for Sandy Steiglitz on WPRB’s Sunday Morning Opera with Sandy to host a rare broadcast of Romeo Cascarino’s “William Penn.”
Cascarino, born in South Philadelphia in 1922, labored at this, his magnum opus, for 25 years, from 1950 to 1975. It was given its premiere at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia in 1982, to mark the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city. Metropolitan Opera singer bass-baritone John Cheek assumed the title role, and Christopher Macatsoris conducted the Philadelphia Singers and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.
I will be joined in the studio by a very special guest: Dolores Cascarino, the composer’s widow, who created the role of Gulielma (as Dolores Ferraro), Penn’s wife. She will offer anecdotes about – and insights into – this beautiful and haunting opera.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if Cascarino had completed “William Penn” within a few years of starting it, in the 1950s, the opera would now be mentioned in the same breath as Carlisle Floyd’s “Susannah” and Robert Ward’s “The Crucible.” It’s that good.
Join me for this one-of-a-kind broadcast of a first-rate, virtually unknown American opera, in a recording which is not commercially available, with valuable insights from the composer’s closest confidante, who sang in the work’s first performance.
It all comes your way on this week’s “Sunday Morning Opera,” which will be heard from 7 to 10 a.m. EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.
